Alpha & Omega Ministries Apologetics Blog
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Quick Greetings
05/30/2006 - James White
Greetings from Long Beach Airport. On my way home after spending yesterday with Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron and the entire crew at The Way of the Master here in Southern California. I talked, quite honestly, non-stop, from yesterday morning at 7:30am till yesterday afternoon at 4:30pm. We shot a great deal of footage (high def!) on Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, Roman Catholicism, and Islam. I had a wonderful time with all the guys, and really enjoyed getting to meet Ray and Kirk, both of whom proved to be genuine, passionate brothers with a real love for the Lord. They were greatly encouraging, and I look forward to coming back here next month to shoot more footage relating to apologetics and evangelism.I'm shooting for a 2pm DL tomorrow, yes, on Wednesday. I have not checked with the Powers That Be on that yet, but I will once my flight gets in.
Also, I think some of our readers would find the Bible Study lesson Sunday morning at PRBC to be useful/helpful. The section in the synoptic study brought us to the subject of Christ's rejoicing in the context of judgment. Here is the study (streaming/download).
09:22:54 - Category: Misc - Link to this article -
Blogging Woes
05/27/2006 - James White
Might get a little slow around here for the next two weeks. I will be gone a good bit more than I'm here, with questionable internet access. But I'll do my best. We will shoot for a Wednesday afternoon DL next week, though it would be best to go for an earlier time, like 6pm EDT instead of 7pm.Oh, no new developments in the Caner debate: we can't even get the proposed moderator to respond to e-mails. Unless he is doing missions work in Zambia or something, this is just completely unacceptable. It is one thing to not have time for unsolicited e-mails. I have that problem all the time. Folks are constantly sending me this or that paper asking me to review it, comment on it, etc., and I simply can't do it. But we are talking about formal arrangements for a rather large public event here. And it has been two full weeks since I began asking direct questions, and so far, I haven't even been given the courtesy of a single response, even a short one saying, "I'll get to you, sorry!" The saga remains utterly amazing.
Ironically, arranging the Spong debate was a breeze in comparison. Shabir Ally and I are discussing arranging for the UK debates next year. Amazing what can happen when both sides are even semi intent on actually making the thing happen.
Finally, for those feeling ecumenical, here is a cure. A post by Art Sippo from yesterday. Let it bathe you in its light and love and joy:Catholicism represents the historic Christianity against which prots are protesting. Our claims to authenticity are unsurpassed and the prot cults enviy [sic] us for them.
Last year I crticized [sic] Mr. White's trashy book Mary-Another Redeemer? because he asserted the exact opposite of what we Catholics teach in the doctrine of the Co-Redemptrix. He did his usual superfical [sic] job of misrepresentation which I demolished i8n [sic] a paragraph or two. Mr. White (aka Pseudopodeo) reacted violently to my criticism, but he did not deny or refute what I said. He couldn't, because I was right and he knew it.
There has been a cottage industry of anti-Catholicism among those of the Calvioid [?] tradition form [sic] the very beginning of the Deformation. It has been necessary because they feel threatened by Catholicism. And IMHO, Calvin himslef [sic] was a man of dubious morals and motives who was a murderous religious megalomaniac. There is something of the demonic about him. It also seems to me that the same is true of those who follow him. To me every year Pseudopodeo looks more and more like Anton LaVey (the founder of the Church of Satan). It is frightening.
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Quick Update
05/25/2006 - James White
The DL will be live this afternoon at 4pm. I might even have something other than a plastic table to sit at today! I have been listening to the sounds of hammers, drills, saws, all day...and the wood for my bookshelves is supposed to arrive next week! The trees finally grew up, I guess. Not sure what I will do with a functional library again! Guess I'll have to finish writing that book...what is it called again? Oh, yes, Pulpit Crimes! Yes indeed.Speaking of library resources and the like, I rarely make mention of these things, but a small number of folks have let me know that they would like to know when a particular need arises, a special need, a special project, to which they may wish to contribute. I have a set of reference works I would very much like to have available to me as I follow the Lord's leading in my studies and future work. Given their nature, they are tremendously expensive, all of them together adding up to just over a thousand dollars. With all the continued expenses of construction, I felt it best to let folks know about this and let the Lord take care of the need through His people, in His time.
15:48:03 - Category: Misc - Link to this article -
Kudos to the First Presbyterian Church of Oak Ridge, Tennessee
05/24/2006 - James White
I get a weekly e-mail from John Shelby Spong (no, it isn't personal: it's mass produced). The things people write to him are often utterly amazing to me. But today's was most notable. Grimes G. Slaughter (that's what it said, honestly) wrote:I have just been fired as a Jr. High Sunday School teacher at the First Presbyterian Church in Oak Ridge, TN, because I would not represent the Bible as perfect and infallible to the children. I have lots of proof to the contrary: I have many versions of the Bible on my hard drive and can search any of them for any word or phrase in a fraction of a second. It is possible that I have found ugly and evil content of which you are unaware. I would be pleased to send you a list of what I have found. Apparently "The Sins of the Scripture: Exposing the Bible's Texts of Hate to Reveal the God of Love' is exactly what I need. I intend to procure a copy soon.
Oh no! Grimes has a computer Bible program! Who would have thought of that? Why didn't we believers come up with a computer Bible program? How will we defend ourselves against this new onslaught? The faith is doomed!
OK, well, laughter is good for the soul. Anyway, congratulations to the First Presbyterian Church in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, for kicking an unbeliever out of a teaching position. Good to see such an appropriate action! Now the real question is, did they likewise kick this unbeliever out of the congregation? I would surely hope so! But, sadly, the idea of church discipline is pretty...out of date, shall we say?
15:54:37 - Category: Misc - Link to this article -
Thursday Odds and Ends
05/18/2006 - James White
Shabir Ally Debate mp3's Available! Click here to order. No, we don't have the DVD's yet, for two reasons: 1) we don't have the tapes from Biola, and 2) these mp3's were taken from a tape in one of our two cameras that had an audio feed. Believe me, we want the DVD's as badly as anyone else, and will get to them as soon as we can.Well, it definitely looks like The Da Vinci Code is taking it on the chin from the critics. That may well mean nothing, but then again, I had wondered how such a dialogue-driven plot with lots of esoteric explanations of signs and symbols and the like was going to translate onto the screen. In any case, yes, I plan on seeing a matinee of the movie in the morning. Don't really have any choice, do I?
Speaking of the most over-blown movie story of the past decade, I hope no one was overly shocked to hear Sir Ian McKellan say that the Bible should have a disclaimer at the front identifying it as fiction. We all know that is Hollywood speaking---gay Hollywood, in this particular situation. Of course, I could not help but chuckle because as you listen to the audio (story here, audio linked in the story) you catch two things: first, I don't think Matt Lauer has even read the silly book, since his set-up had nothing to do with the actual plotline (even Tom Hanks knew that); but moreso, when McKellan says the Bible should have a disclaimer in the front you can hear someone, not in the frame, give a nervous little, almost surprised, laugh. Hanks? Howard? I don't know, but it sounded like someone was really thinking, "Oh, great, the reviews stink and now you have to go and add this?" In any case, I was hardly surprised at McKellan's comments. He's an obviously brilliant actor who must know quite well what God's Word says about his lifestyle. It takes a lot of energy to suppress that truth, so you can hardly be surprised when someone in his position tries to identify as "fiction" the very Scripture that speaks so clearly to his own sin. UPDATE: Dan Phillips sent me this link where McKellen, on his own website, confirms that he tears Leviticus 18:22 out of Gideon Bibles in hotel rooms.
And finally, this just in. Randall Terry has moved from Roman Catholic Lite to the fully leaded version. Here's the story. I'm sorry, but moving from Charismatic Episcopalian to Roman Catholic isn't exactly the most surprising Tiber crossing. But the story is interesting for what it does, and doesn't say.
12:15:20 - Category: Misc - Link to this article -
More Photos from Biola...and Angelz
05/10/2006 - James White
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Two Odds and Ends
05/02/2006 - James White
First, for all the procrastinators on the West Coast who are all of a sudden scrambling to get tickets to the debate this Sunday evening at Biola with Shabir Ally: I put this link up earlier, but not everyone has figured out the deep things of computer searching, so, here it is again: click here to get details and tickets. While I look forward to meeting many of you, please remember that I can't meet a thousand folks in one night, either. Your presence and prayers are greatly appreciated.Secondly, beginning, as I recall, sometime last year, a gentleman who denies the deity of Christ by the name of Patrick Navas began writing to me. He sent me a huge velo-bound "print-out book" similar to ones I've received over the years by "experts" on every topic under the sun. I saw very little new as I thumbed through the book, but the main reason I could only chuckle and set the work aside was that he was very intent, in his e-mails and letters, to make sure I knew he had taken me to task on 1 Corinthians 15:28. The problem is, I have not written almost anything on 1 Corinthians 15:28. His entire "response" is based upon...a phone call on The Dividing Line! As far as I can tell from looking at another article that arrived today, he doesn't even bother to give the date of the program. So, an off-the-cuff response to a caller on a program is his sole grounds for writing pages and pages of "rebuttal." I'm sorry, but it is very, very hard to take such folks seriously especially when they in essence are begging you to take notice of them. He has been sending his little missives to a group of folks (and he likes to make sure you know he has done so). When you've published an entire book on the Trinity and someone like this has to focus upon a phone call on an unidentified Dividing Line, you know someone has missed the boat.
14:57:50 - Category: Misc - Link to this article -
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